thoughts from the election

Two little quotes that have been thinking about recently, especially in relation to the current political climate in Australia...

"Denial vanquishes fear"

essentially that the idea that if there is something monumentally wrong with the world that would effect your ideological world view and security that everything is ok, then perhaps it is easier to denial that there is a problem and continue the path that you are on as deviating seems much too hard and challenging. If you apply this idea to the concept of Peak Oil and the consumption society that we have built around access to cheap liquid fuels, then to deny there is a problem means you must consume more, then consumption masks the insecurity, if only for a fleeting moment.


The other little quote was

"We won't do it if you won't do it"

Thinking about strategies and leadership to counter climate change (also heard it called global heating recently - "heating" seems a little more alarmist then "warming"). Australia could have been a world leader in alternative / renewable technologies, but instead under the Howard government watch all we have seen a focus on is the short term, dig it up, ship it out, burn it overseas. No responsibility in this short term economic paradigm, just blatant profiteering. No leadership, no ideas, just "traditional" values, politics and ideas - how sad and boring! I feel sorry for the kids who have grown up during the rule of Howard, they have never known anything different, or seen leadership that saw aspiration as something other then owning your own home and filling it with consumer products. That had a government capable of asking some tough questions about what sort of country Australia is, and what sort of future do we have, especially when we live in a continent that has a fragile environment, stressed from only just over 200 years of exploitation and exploration by European interests.


Our politicians who seem to believe that if we put in place mitigation measures that might effect the potential for economic growth (eg: some form of environmental protection), and who believe that the economy and continuous economic growth is the panacea for any environmental issues, really highlight the short term thinking that seems to characterise the consumption society. What there seems little appreciation of, is that there is no economy without the environment, and the cost of action in the future to fix problems that we are creating now will be far greater and intractable then at current levels. The two dimensional thinking that sees the world in black and white, that ignores and negates possibilities outside of narrow political views needs to change. We need multidimensional thinking that is embracing and cohesive, 4-dimensions that look not only at the three dimensions of the physical world, but look to the 4th dimension of time and account for our place and sense of place in that time.

The cry of "it's the economy, stupid" should be "it's the stupid, economy".... perhaps if we stopped focusing so much on the economy, and a little more on the physical results of the economy (be they either negative or positive) then we might understand the possibilities that exist for change.